The Lysholm department is led by our departmental director and head of service with the larger team composed of 24 consultant neuroradiologists, 49 radiographers, six clinical scientists and 10 clerical staff with supporting nursing staff. All members of the team help to provide a comprehensive range of inpatient and outpatient services to referrers from the NHNN departments of Neurology and Neurosurgery.
Radiographer
Radiographers complete a three-year degree in diagnostic imaging and are registered with the Healthcare Professions Council (HCPC).
They are specially trained to take your x-ray or perform your MRI or CT scan. If you have an interventional procedure (such as an angiogram or biopsy) a radiographer will be part of the team looking after you.
At NHNN we have a team of 49 radiographers. Radiographers at NHNN all wear theatre scrubs and appropriate PPE.
Superintendent radiographers are senior staff members that manage the different clinical areas, e.g. CT, MRI, Angiography: we currently have four superintendents at NHNN. Our superintendents wear white tunics. Our Angio superintendent wears scrubs as they work within the angiography suite (similar to an operating theatre).
Radiologist
A radiologist is a doctor who is specially trained to interpret diagnostic images such as X-rays, MRI and CT scans. If you have an interventional procedure (such as an angiogram or biopsy)an Interventional Neuroradiologist will perform the procedure. Carotid and transcranial Doppler ultrasound scans at NHNN are also performed by a radiologist.
Radiologists provide a written report of the results of your examination which he or she will send to your doctor. In our department we have a team of 24 consultant radiologists and a number of specialist radiology registrars at any given time who rotate through different Neuroradiology centres.
Radiologists do not wear a uniform, unless they are working in the interventional suites where they wear theatre scrubs.
Consultants
For a list of current neuroradiology consultants, please see the neuroradiology home page.
Nurses
We have a dedicated nursing team working closely with the radiographers and radiologists to provide excellent patient care.
Administration and clerical team
We have a team of administrators and booking assistants who provide support to our radiologists and management team. This includes booking appointments and answering patient or referrer queries. On arrival to our department you will be greeted by a member of this team who will check your details and provide you with information prior to your imaging.
Clinical scientists
The team members are:
- John Thornton
- Laura Mancini
- Annie Papadaki
- Stephen Wastling
- Marzena Wylezinska-Arridge
- James Moggridge.
Our clinical scientists support, enable and deliver advanced neuroimaging methods for specialist diagnosis and treatment, and aim to further improve our patients’ outcomes and experience using the latest developments in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), image analysis and computing technology. Their activity is split between service delivery, service improvement and experimental medicine research supported by the UCLH NIHR Biomedical Research Centre.
Image-guided neurosurgery
Our clinical scientists enable MRI guided surgical planning to remove brain tumours and treat epilepsy - designing, performing, analysing and co-reporting examinations to identify critical white matter pathways (DTI tractography) and functionally eloquent brain regions (fMRI). For intra-operative MRI, our scientists are present in the operating theatre for scientific support and safety supervision.
MRI safety
Clinical scientists play a critical role in managing processes to ensure the safety of patients undergoing MRI examinations, and that of staff and visitors entering the MRI environment. By scientific evaluation of medical implants they help make safe examinations available to patients who may be excluded from MRI due to safety concerns at other centres.
Specialist MRI service support
Our clinical scientists lead scanner acquisition protocol optimisation and quality assurance to maximise diagnostic quality and service efficiency.
Scientific computing
The clinical scientists maintain a network of workstations for scientific analysis of clinical imaging data, manage research image data, and build bespoke software tools for clinical analysis and service optimisation.
Advanced MRI methods
Our clinical scientists aim to rapidly translate the latest cutting-edge MRI research into clinical practice to benefit patient care. They have recently introduced clinical magnetic resonance spectroscopy, arterial spin labelling cerebral perfusion measurement, and advanced DTI and fMRI methods.
Teaching and training
The clinical scientists deliver teaching and training in MRI safety, clinical imaging methods, and MRI physics within our department to radiographers, neuroradiologists and other staff. We also participate in academic teaching for instance in the UCL Institute of Neurology Advanced Neuroimaging MSc programme.
Research imaging platform support
Our clinical scientists support income-generating imaging for experimental medicine studies and clinical trials by reviewing study proposals, setting up scanner protocols, supervising advanced acquisitions and managing research image data for UCLH BRC and external investigators.
Experimental medicine research
Supported by the UCLH NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, and other funders, we lead and collaborate in experimental medicine research focused on improving patient treatment, outcomes and experience. Current projects include:
- Harmonizing and improving MRI protocols to maximize the research value of routine clinical MRI (The BRC Neuroimaging Initiative)
- Developing and validating outcome measures to enable treatment trials in neuromuscular disease
- Quantitative MRI to measure treatment effects and improve diagnosis in dementia, prion disease, and movement disorders
- Safety research: implant safety, establishing device-specific safe MR conditions, and optimised conditionally-safe examination protocols
- New tools to bring quantitative MRI into the reporting workflow (the Quantitative Neuroradiology Initiative)
- Neurosurgical image-based planning and navigation tools
- Cerebral blood flow measurement.
